An attack on a small army garrison at the mouth of the La Plata
river in the Sierra Maestra produced our first victory. The effect
was electrifying and traveled far beyond that rough region. It
was like a call to attention, proving that the Rebel Army did in
fact exist and was disposed to fight. For us, it reaffirmed our
chances for final victory.

On January 14, 1957, a little more than a month after the surprise
attack at Alegría de Pío, we came to a halt by the Magdalena
river, which separates La Plata and a ridge beginning in the
Sierra Maestra and ending at the sea. Fidel gave orders for target
practice as some sort of training for our people — some of the men
were using weapons for the first time in their lives. We bathed
there as well — having ignored matters of hygiene for many
days — and those who were able to do so changed into clean
clothes. At that time we had 23 working weapons: nine rifles
equipped with telescopic sights, five semiautomatic machine
guns, four bolt-action rifles, two Thompson submachine guns,
two submachine guns, and a 16-gauge shotgun.

That afternoon we climbed the last hill before reaching the environs
of La Plata. We were following a narrow track, traveled
by very few people, which had been marked out by machete
especially for us by a peasant named Melquiades Elías. He had
been recommended by our guide Eutimio [Guerra], who at that
time was indispensable to us and seemed to be the epitome
of the rebel peasant. He was later apprehended by [Joaquín]
Casillas, however, who, instead of killing him, bought him off
with an offer of $10,000 and a rank in the army if he managed to
kill Fidel. Eutimio came close to fulfilling his part of the bargain,
but lacked the courage to do so. He was nonetheless very useful
to the enemy, informing them of the location of several of our
camps.

At the time, Eutimio was serving us loyally. He was one of
the many peasants fighting for their land in the struggle against
the big landowners, and anyone who fought them also fought
the Rural Guard, who did the landowners' bidding.
That day we took two peasants prisoner, who turned out
to be relatives of our guide. One of them was released but we
kept the other one as a precautionary measure. The next day,
January 15, we sighted the La Plata army barracks, under construction
and with zinc roofs. A group of half-dressed men were
moving about, but we could nevertheless make out their enemy
uniforms. Just before sundown, about 6 p.m., a boat came in;
some soldiers got out and others climbed aboard. Because we
could not quite figure out the maneuver, we postponed the
attack to the following day.

We began watching the barracks from dawn on January 16.
The coast-guard boat had withdrawn during the night and
although we searched the area, no soldiers could be seen. At
3 p.m. we decided to approach the road along the river leading
to the barracks and take a look. By nightfall we crossed the very
shallow La Plata river and took up position on the road. Five
minutes later we apprehended two peasants; one of them had
a record as an informer. When we told them who we were and
assured them that if they did not speak our intentions could
not be guaranteed, they gave us some valuable information: the
barracks held about 15 soldiers. They also told us that Chicho
Osorio, one of the region's three most notorious foremen, was
about to pass by; these foremen worked for the Laviti family
estate. The Lavitis had built an enormous fiefdom, maintaining
it through a regime of terror with the help of individuals like
Chicho Osorio. Shortly afterward, the said Chicho showed up
drunk, astride a mule, with a small Afro-Cuban boy riding
behind him. Universo Sánchez, in the name of the Rural
Guard, gave him the order to halt and Chicho rapidly replied,
“mosquito.” That was the password.

We must have looked like a bunch of pirates, but Chicho
Osorio was so drunk we were able to fool him. Fidel stepped
forward and in an indignant tone said he was an army colonel
who had come to investigate why the rebels had not yet been
liquidated. He bragged about having gone into the woods,
which accounted for his beard. He added that what the army
was doing was “trash.” In a word, he cut the army's efficiency
to pieces. Sheepishly, Chicho Osorio admitted that the guards
spent all their time inside the barracks, eating and doing nothing
but firing occasional useless rounds. He readily agreed that the
rebels must be wiped out. We carefully began asking about who
was friendly and unfriendly in the area and noted his replies,
naturally reversing the roles: when Chicho called somebody a
bad man we knew he was one of our friends, and so on. We
had some 20 names and he was still jabbering away. He told us
how he had killed two men, adding, “But my General Batista
set me free at once.” He spoke of having slapped two peasants
who were “a little bad-mannered,” adding that the guards were
incapable of such action; they let the peasants talk without
punishing them. Fidel asked Osorio what he would do if he
ever caught Fidel Castro, and Osorio, with an explicit gesture,
said that he would cut his ... off, and that the same went for
Crescencio [Pérez]. “Look,” he said, showing us his shoes,
which were the same Mexican-made kind our troops wore,
“these shoes belonged to one of those sons of ... we killed.”

There, without realizing it, Chicho Osorio signed his own death
sentence. At Fidel's suggestion, he agreed to accompany us to
the barracks in order to surprise the soldiers and prove to them
they were badly prepared and were neglecting their duties.
Nearing the barracks, with Chicho Osorio in the lead, I was
still not certain he had not wised up to our trick. But he kept
on ingenuously, so drunk he could not think straight. After
crossing the river again to approach the barracks, Fidel said
that established military rules called for a prisoner to be tied
up. Osorio did not resist and he went on, unwittingly, as a real
prisoner. He explained to us that the only guards posted were at
the entrance to the barracks under construction, and at the house
of one of the other foremen named Honorio. Osorio guided us
to a place near the barracks on the road to El Macío. Compañero
Luis Crespo, now a commander, went on to scout around and
returned saying that the foreman's report was correct. Crespo
had seen the two barracks and the fiery ends of the guards'
cigarettes.

We were just about ready to approach the barracks when we
had to hide to let three soldiers on horseback go by. The men
were driving a prisoner on foot like a mule. They passed close
by me, and I remember the words of the poor peasant, “I'm just
like one of you,” and the answer by one of the men we later
identified as Corporal Basol, “Shut up and keep walking or I'll
whip you.” We thought the peasant would escape danger by
not being in the barracks when we attacked with our bullets, but
the following day, when the soldiers heard of the attack, they
brutally murdered him at El Macío.

We had 22 weapons ready for the attack. It was an important
occasion, and we had very little ammunition. We had to take
the army barracks at all costs, for failure meant wasting our
ammunition, leaving us practically defenseless. Compañero
Lieutenant Julio Díaz — who later died heroically at the battle
of El Uvero — Camilo Cienfuegos, Benítez, and Calixto Morales,
armed with semiautomatic machine guns, were to surround
the palm-thatched quarters on the right side. Fidel, Universo
Sánchez, Luis Crespo, Calixto García, [Manuel] Fajardo — today
a commander with the same last name as our physician, Piti
Fajardo, who was [later] killed in the Escambray — and myself,
would attack the center. Raúl [Castro] with his squadron and
Almeida with his would attack from the left.
We approached within 40 meters of the barracks. By the light
of a full moon, Fidel initiated the gun battle with two bursts of
machine-gun fire and all available rifles followed. Immediately,
we demanded the enemy's surrender, but with no results. The
murderer and informer Chicho Osorio was executed as soon as
shooting broke out.

The attack had begun at 2:40 a.m., and the guards put up
a much fiercer resistance than we had expected. A sergeant,
armed with an M-1, responded with fire every time we demanded
their surrender. We were given orders to use our old
Brazilian-type hand grenades. Luis Crespo threw his, and I
mine, but they did not detonate. Raúl Castro threw a stick of
dynamite and nothing happened. We then had no choice but to
get close to the quarters and set them on fire, even at the risk of
our own lives. Universo Sánchez made the first, futile attempt
and Camilo Cienfuegos also failed. Finally, Luis Crespo and I
got close to one of the buildings and this compañero set it alight.
The light from the blaze showed us it was simply a storeroom
full of coconuts, but we had intimidated the soldiers and they
gave up the fight. One of them, trying to escape, ran right into
Luis Crespo's rifle; Luis shot him in the chest, took the man's
rifle, and continued firing into the house. Camilo Cienfuegos,
sheltered behind a tree, fired on the fleeing sergeant and ran
out of ammunition. The soldiers, almost defenseless, were being
wounded mercilessly by our bullets. Camilo Cienfuegos was
first into the quarters, on our side, where shouts of surrender
could be heard.

We quickly took stock of our takings: eight Springfields, one
Thompson machine gun, and about 1,000 rounds; we had fired
approximately 500 rounds. In addition, we now had cartridge
belts, fuel, knives, clothing, and some food. Casualties: they had
two dead, five wounded, and we had taken three prisoners.
Some, along with the informer Honorio, had fled. On our side,
not a scratch.

We withdrew after setting fire to the soldiers' quarters and
tending to the wounded as best we could — three of them were
seriously wounded and we left them in the care of the prisoners.
We were told after the final victory that they had died. One
of the soldiers later joined the forces under Commander Raúl
Castro, was promoted to lieutenant, and died in a plane accident
after the war.

Our attitude toward the wounded was in stark contrast to
that of Batista's army. Not only did they kill our wounded men,
they abandoned their own. Over time this difference had an
effect on the enemy and it was a factor in our victory. Fidel
ordered that the prisoners be given all available medicine to
take care of the wounded. This decision pained me because, as a
doctor, I felt the need to save all available medicine for our own
troops. We freed all the civilians and at 4:30 a.m. on January 17
started for Palma Mocha, arriving at dawn and searching out
the most inaccessible zones of the Sierra Maestra.

Our eyes met with a pitiful spectacle: the day before, an
army corporal and one of the foremen had warned all the families
in the area that the air force was going to bomb the entire
zone, and an exodus — almost all the peasants — toward the
coast had begun. No one knew of our presence in the area, so it
was evidently a maneuver on the part of the foremen and the
Rural Guard to take the land and belongings away from the
peasants. But their lie had coincided with our attack and now
became a reality. Terror reigned among the peasants and it was
impossible for us to stop their flight.

This was the first victorious battle of the Rebel Army. This
battle and the one following it were the only occasions in the life
of our troop when we had more weapons than men. Peasants
were not yet ready to join in the struggle, and communication
with the urban bases was practically nonexistent.